Dave's homestyle

A day after publicly supporting a property tax cap, Gov. David Paterson will be on the road making the case for it in a style similar to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s. But different.

Paterson tomorrow will visit the home of a couple in Williston Park to talk about his property tax cap legislation.

Spitzer made ample use as a candidate and governor of taking his case to “ordinary citizens.” Not an unusual and sometimes made it a point to choose districts of lawmakers who disagreed with him so that he could blast them on their home turf. Spitzer made no apologies for using his bully pulpit to the max, but the strategy that didn’t always sit well with legislators who were on the receiving end of his criticisms.

But while Paterson may be in pulpit mode, he may be leaving his inner bully home. In this case, the governor is parachuting into a mixed political area, represented by a Senate Democrat, Craig Johnson, and an Assembly Republican, Tom McKevitt. In both cases, the lawmakers’ conferences are agreeable to the tax cap idea. And the area has experienced high tax increases.

Erin Duggan, a spokeswoman for Paterson, said the governor isn’t following his predecessor, but that “The best way to talk about issues that affect New Yorkers is to talk with New Yorkers.”

Still, perhaps worth noting: Williston Park is on kind of a hook in McKevitt’s 17th Assembly District that’s surrounded almost entirely by the 16th AD, which is represented by a Democrat, Michele Schimmel. And Assembly Democrats aren’t yet keen on the cap.